Discovering Strengths, Making Learning Fun and Helping Children Realize their Full Potential
Archive for the ‘Word Smarts’ Category.
New research is showing that babies who grow up in a bilingual household develop more brain power than children who don’t. This short video presents the information and provides suggestions for exposure to an additional language for children who don’t happen to be part of a bilingual family!
Watch the Video Bilingual Babies may be Brainier
Getting Kids to Read…..Sometimes it seems as easy as finding the Holly Grail. Let me start by saying I am officially a Book Worm. I learned to read when I was 3 years old and since then I have spent my life reading just about everything I can get my hands on. I love books and I am subscribed to a couple dozen magazines from business, to parenting, to light reading. I just crave information.
So when I had kids, I started envisioning lazy days just sitting on the sofa with the whole family reading. Well, that dream didn’t last long. My kids just did not like to read. They would read the minimum required by homework, and that was it. I spent money on books and time at the library picking different types of books and different authors hoping that I would find the “right book” that would just awaken their love of reading. All my efforts failed. That is until we found Rick Riordan. He has written a series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Think Harry Potter but instead of the kids being children of Sorcerers and Witches, they are children of the Greek Gods. The books are amazing. The adventures are so much fun, and the kids learn all about greek mythology in such a fun way that they don’t realize they are learning. They are also easy to read. So even young children who have already mastered the reading of chapter books, can easily transition to these books.
My 9 year old son was the first to start reading them. Then, I joined him and we read the first 4 books of the series in a matter of days. Then my 7 year old daughter started browsing one of the books and she also got hooked. I have to say these books changed my children’s lives. They went from thinking reading is boring, to thinking reading is absolutely wonderful, and to understanding that books are the doors to all sort of magical worlds. So if you are looking for a way of getting your kids to read, I would recommend you try these books. And be prepared, because once they start reading these books, they won’t want to do anything else but read. These books are just absolutely engaging. The first 4 books of the series are:
The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1)
The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 2)
The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 3)
The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 4)
But hurry up because the 5th book is coming out in May. Our dilemma in our house is who will get to read it FIRST!
On March 2nd, 2009, the National Education Association will sponsor as they do every year: “Read Across America”. This program focuses on motivating children to read, in addition to helping them master basic skills.
What many parents don’t realize is that for more than 30 years, boys have been scoring lower than girls on U.S. Department of Education reading tests and that the gender gap increases as kids grow up. And not only does the reading gender gap span every racial and ethnic group, but it also categorically finds boys underperforming girls regardless of income, disability, or English-speaking ability.
Read Across America Day underscores the importance of reading. The research is clear: greater reading skills equates to greater success in school. Increasingly, it also equates to greater success in the workforce as blue-collar jobs move to low-wage countries. If we don’t start to help boost our boys out of their reading slump, many of them will become unemployed adults.
Are you an educator facing challenges to get boys interested in reading? or a parent struggling for ideas on how to motivate your son to read? The “Making Minds matter” organization can help. They offer free online consulting to parents, consulting to schools and teaching to teachers to teach boys to read.
